Cyberspace Identity Theft: An Overview

The present age of technological advances have boosted the crime of cyberspace identity theft. Although this crime is not new, the Internet has expanded its scope and created innovative ways of committing it, leading to a new variant called cyberspace identity theft. The identity thief uses information relating to the identity of another person’s such as name, address, telephone number, mother’s maiden name, social security number, social insurance number, health card number, bank account information, driver’s license number and date of birth. It is stealing someone’s identity information to commit theft, fraud or other crimes. This paper aims to reviews the historical, international and regional background to the law relating to cyberspace identity theft. Also addressed, are the national, regional, and international approaches to combating the problem, with a particular focus on the United Kingdom, Malaysia and Iran.Given the above premise, one of the objectives of this chapter is to examine the meaning of cyberspace identity theft from a global perspective. It aims to advance an acceptable definition of cyberspace identity theft (in addition to other related concepts) such that it would be easy to identify the crime, facilitate its investigation, as well as prosecution. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2015.v6n4s3p290